Gestational Diabetes

Having gestational diabetes (GD) sucks. It's a common pregnancy problem. According to the UCSF Medical Center, approximately 7% of pregnant women develop gestational diabetes. First time pregnant women are typically not tested until around 28 weeks gestation. I was tested at 12 weeks because I had GD with Brynlee. 

Let me just say, the whole entire GD (pun intended) process sucks. It's not just testing my blood sugar 4 times a day. It goes like this: I take my fasting blood sugar when I wake up before I have eaten or had anything to drink, but after I have put in my contacts. I have to eat 3 meals a day plus 3 snacks a day. I have to remember the exact time I put breakfast in my mouth and remember to test my blood sugar 2 hours later. I do the same for lunch and dinner. I have to eat less than 45g carbs for meals and 15-30g carbs for the three snacks. I have to force myself to eat an evening snack or else my fasting blood sugar level is a little elevated in the morning. For fasting blood sugar, my number has to be no higher than 95. Last night, I did not eat an evening snack (I started blood sugars today) and when I woke up today, my stomach hurt, I felt icky, and my blood sugar level was 93. Borderline. So I have to make myself eat something in the evening. I have to write these numbers down and keep track of them. I also have to keep track of my food so I know what food affects my blood sugar levels and what to avoid. At the end of each week, I have to email my numbers to the nurse practitioner at the high risk OB's office. Fun stuff.

Luckily, I use MyFitnessPal to input my food. I love that I can use the app and just scan bar codes. This morning for lunch, I made a bowl of tuna with a piece of bread. I just scanned all of the ingredients. Tuna, mustard, mayo, relish, hard boiled egg, and a piece of bread. Easy peasy. I also like that it saves my frequent foods so I can just check mark them and use them again. I can also build recipes on MFP. Sure, MFP is more for weightloss and maintenance, but it works for what I need right now.

I found this awesome app today called Glucose Buddy. It's so neat! I am using it to track my blood sugar numbers. It's so awesome. I can even email the numbers to myself and it sends it like a spreadsheet. I can also email it directly to the Nurse Practitioner through the app. Sweeeeeeeet.

Glucose Buddy app on iphone

Easy logging of blood sugars

Easy e-mail feature

I am so happy I found this! With Brynlee, I had a little mini journal and I would write everything in there. Then I would type up the numbers in a spreadsheet to show my doctor at my appointments, but by the time I was diagnosed, I was seeing my OB biweekly and then it was even more frequent with once a week appointments and NSTs. This method should be much easier than that! I am all about making life more easy and more organized.

Having GD sucks, but I know that keeping myself on track will be better for this little baby. Less than 5 weeks and we'll know what color to paint the nursery. :)